


Living and Breathing

by Zhelana



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 12:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11148432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhelana/pseuds/Zhelana
Summary: Something is very strange about this planet.





	Living and Breathing

Picard, Data, and Ryker beamed down to the planet they were orbiting. It was an M class planet, but uninhabited. They expected to find a crew of another ship which had crashed on the surface of this planet, and beam the crew back to the Enterprise with them where they would receive medical care, and transport back to the nearest inhabited planet so they could make their ways home.   
“The tricorder seems to be malfunctioning, captain,” Data said. Ryker took it and shook it before pressing a few buttons. Nothing worked.   
“What’s the problem?” Picard asked.   
“The life signs seem to be moving from one place to another too quickly for humans to walk or run. It’s like they’re teleporting, but if their teleporter works, why don’t they have shuttles escape pods?”  
“Can we get to any of them?” Picard asked.   
“They appear to be moving randomly, never staying in one place for very long at all.” Data answered.   
“No pattern at all?” Picard asked.   
Data studied the moving dots. “There does appear to be a large concentration of them in a cave about a kilometer from here.” He finally said, handing the tricorder back to Picard. Picard studied it for a moment, before starting to walk in the direction Data indicated. 

The terrain was rugged. They had landed in the middle of a desert. The kilometer took them the better part of an hour to walk. When they reached the cave, Picard went in calling, “This is Jean Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise. We have come to rescue you. Please come talk to us.” The people huddled in the back in fear. Picard looked at them, “what is wrong?” he asked one of them.   
“Did the planet send you?” she asked.   
“The planet? No. Starfleet sent me. We heard your distress signal”  
“Then run and save yourselves.” She told him turning back to her own crew. 

All of a sudden, the ground began to shake. “Run!” yelled one of the members of the other crew, and no one had to be told twice. Both crews ran for the front of the cave. A few of them made it out before it was cut off but the majority were trapped in the cave.   
“Dig them out,” said the only member of the second crew to have spoken to Picard. Everyone started moving rocks until a small hole large enough to crawl in and out of was dug. “I told you to save yourselves,” said the woman.   
“We have come to rescue you,” Picard answered. People were crawling through the hole quickly and everyone was standing around looking numb.   
“Again?” someone asked as though he already knew the answer.   
“Again,” the woman said, “we’ll have to find some place else to hide.”   
“Let me take you to my ship,” Picard offered.   
“You can take some of my men, but I will stay until I find those who have been taken.” She said.   
“Taken?” Data asked, shaking some rock off himself. “There are no other lifeforms on this planet.”   
“Something is taking our people, and we don’t know where,” she told him matter of factly. Data cocked his head to the side.   
“We won’t leave until we have everyone,” Picard told her. “We have a tricorder reading on 57 other lifeforms on this planet, which must be the remaining members of your crew.”   
“Are they near?” she asked.   
“Within a few kilometers,” Data answered.   
“We’ll beam everyone else up here, and then we’ll go find your people,” Picard gathered the crew of the Lightning into a clearing then called the Enterprise for the beam up. They disappeared and then Data looked at the tricorder again, “the next biggest and nearest group of your crew is about two kilometers from here,” he reported. 

The group began walking when all of a sudden a dark buzzing cloud approached them. Soon they were surrounded by locusts. “I thought you said there were no lifeforms on this planet other than the crew of the Lightning, Data.” Picard swatted at the bugs. “They’re biting,” Ryker mentioned.   
“They’ll eat us alive if we don’t get out of here,” the woman, Captain Cai yelled, starting to run. The Enterprise crew started running after her. As they reached the edge of the cloud, the locusts all just disappeared as suddenly as they came.   
“They are not lifeforms, captain.” Data reported.   
“Not life forms? What are they?”   
“It’s the planet. It’s been trying to kill us.” Everyone turned to look at Cai.   
“We’ve seen weirder things,” Ryker mused. 

They continued walking until they found the rest of Cai’s crew. Then Picard called to beam everyone up. 

As they were getting people into a clearing, a mountain shot up out of no where. Lava shot from the top of it. The Enterprise took a few seconds to lock onto all the people, because there were so many of them. In the chaos, one of Cai’s men stepped in lava, and screamed as he fell into a stream of it. “Ensign!” Cai ran towards him. Picard stopped her, “there’s nothing you can do,” he said. “Half my crew is dead,” Cai said with her head in her hands, “to lose another one so close to rescue is unbearable.”   
“I know. I’m sorry,” Picard said, “but we have to go now before something else blows up at us.” She nodded, and Picard tapped his chest calling “Enterprise, 50 to beam up.” The next thing they knew they were all aboard the Enterprise. 

Picard and Cai went to talk to Troi. “I need to know if there’s something on this planet that is sentient,” Picard told her.   
She stopped for a moment then said, “I sense great anger,”   
“All our instruments read no life signs.”   
“No, it’s bigger than a primitive life form,” Troi answered, “It’s intelligent.”   
“Thank you,” Picard and Cai said, walking towards the elevators to the bridge. 

“Captain,” Crusher said as he came in, “we’re picking up radio signals from this planet.”   
“A radio signal? Does it say anything?”   
“We’re not sure yet.”  
“Find out,” Picard said, taking his seat. 

Minutes later, Data called out “Captain, I have found patterns within the radio signal.”   
“Does it say anything?”   
“I’m running it though the universal translator now, Captain.”   
“Good.”   
The computer beeped a few times and a translation appeared. It read, “Go away,” over and over again. 

“Let me try something, Captain.’ Troi said.  
“Very well” Picard told her.   
She concentrated very hard and then said, “we come in peace. We don’t wish to harm” but before she could finish her second sentence, she was grasping her head and screaming, “Make it stop!”   
“Ryker, accompany her to medbay,” Picard ordered. The two left.   
“We need to send a message to this planet,” Picard told everybody left.   
“It is possible that we could send a message back in the same form the original message was sent to us,” Data said, “if we modulate the radios to produce a message, it is possible the planet will respond in kind.”   
“Make it say we’re willing to leave if he stops hurting Troi.”   
Data got to work. Finally, minutes later, he said, “ready to send message, Captain”  
“Make it so,” he said. Data pushed two buttons.   
Moments later, a call came in from medbay. “Captain, my head feels much better now,” Troi said.   
“Then get us out of here, number one” Picard said, and they left.


End file.
